Manitoba evacuees face devastation as water damage and mould ravage homes during months-long absence
Posted October 7, 2025 8:25 pm.
Last Updated October 7, 2025 8:26 pm.
After being forced from their homes for months due to wildfires, some Manitobans are returning to find their properties uninhabitable, due to extensive water damage and dangerous mould infestations that have left families scrambling to rebuild.
“It’s really hard,” said Rose Bighetty, who lost her home in Leaf Rapids to water damage and mould. “I cry every day and I pray every day because I don’t have nothing.”
She and her family slept outside before moving to a hotel room in Thompson and eventually securing a place back home.
Now, without insurance, she’s starting from scratch. Her son says insurance is hard to get in the north.
“Nobody will touch Leaf Rapids,” said Ervin Bighetty, Rose Bighetty’s son and fellow Leaf Rapids resident. “The issue is, we’re so far north, we’re so isolated. At one point there was a high crime rate. But a lot of it is, we’re surrounded by forest.”
Ervin says in their particular community, which has faced leadership dissolution and is now run by a provincially appointed consulting company, getting insurance faces unique obstacles.
“The property owners just left and then houses were vacant, so people just decided to become housing managers of those housing units, and they put people in them and they’re renting them,” said Ervin. “The issue with that is that those houses are non-insurable because the people who are managing them don’t own them.”
Bighetty says she doesn’t know where to turn. The province does offer disaster financial assistance, but it’s only for uninsurable losses. In the meantime, Bighetty says she got 40 dollars from her cousin to start with the basics.
“I appreciate that I have a home, a roof over my head,” said Bighetty. “But I don’t have no beds, nothing. Everything that I had in Leaf Rapids is gone.”
She’s grateful to individuals who’ve stepped up to help her family but says she feels abandoned by her leaders and displaced. She formerly resided in Granville Lake but was forced to leave due to a sewage spill in the community. Now in Leaf Rapids without a local government, Bighetty feels forgotten about.
“That disappoints me that the government doesn’t pay attention to Granville Lake people,” said Bighetty.
In a statement, the province said: Manitoba will continue to provide support to residents who qualify for provincial support programs, such as Employment and Income Assistance, Manitoba Housing, and other programs. We understand the challenges relating to home insurance but are unable to address issues that are outside the scope of the province or the municipality.
